New Delhi: India’s dairy sector is gearing up for a digital makeover, thanks to fierce rivalry between digital wallet companies Paytm and Mobikwik. After Mother Dairy partnered with Paytm for cashless payments at its booths, Mobikwik has tapped the country’s largest dairy player Amul to gain a foothold into India’s Rs 80,000 crore organised dairy market.

Amul, with sales of over Rs 80 crore per day, will help Mobikwik enable digital payments across 8,500 booths and three lakh retail outlets that sell Amul products, including ice cream pushcarts.

“We are targeting around 15-20% of Amul’s sales,” said Bipin Preet Singh, co-founder & CEO of digital wallet Mobikwik. That translates to roughly Rs 16 crore per day or Rs 480 crore per month, since Amul has daily sales of Rs 80 crore, according to Amul’s MD R S Sodhi.

In comparison, from Rs 3 lakh a day, Paytm transactions at 1,100 Mother Dairy booths have increased to Rs 40 lakh per day after demonetisation. Number has increased from 2,000 to 40,000, according to data from Mother Dairy. At present, Mother Dairy accepts cashless transactions through Paytm and SBI Smart Charge card at 1,130 booths (including Safal that sells vegetables and fruits).

“From just 5% before November 8, digital payment now accounts for 17% of sales through our booths. It amounts to around Rs 80 lakh a day,” said Sandeep Ghosh, business head, milk, Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable.

Other than expanding the scope of cashless transactions in their retail operations, both Amul and Mother Dairy have been working to reduce the burden of handling cash in their back-end operations. For instance, only around 12 lakh farmers among those who supply to Amul had bank accounts before November 8. “We disburse around Rs 450 crore in cash every week to our farmers,” said Sodhi. “In around a month, we have opened eight lakh new accounts. We are trying to directly transfer money now, as far as possible.”

In Mother Dairy’s case, from around 2.25 lakh farmers who supply to the company, around 2.18 lakh receive payment into their bank accounts, said Ghosh.

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